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GIFfun™ Online Manual
©Copyright 1998-2002 Stone Design Corp. All Rights Reserved.
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Overview
GIFfun makes animated GIF files. It’s a drag and drop front end to
a gif animation tool, whirlgif, by Hans Dinsen-Hansen, Kevin
Kadow, and Mark Podlipec. The whirlgif source is distributed
inside the appwrapper.
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To access the whirlgif source, select the GIFfun application in the
Finder and bring up the contextual menu for the file by Controlclicking on the file’s name. Choose Show Package Contents and
then navigate to the Resources subfolder of the Contents folder.
Find the whirlgif.tar.gz file and copy it to another location.
To learn about how GIFfun was written, go the GIFfun source
code page.
To get more details on the whirlgif options, read the whirlgif help
file.
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Drag & Drop image files
Drag & Drop to rearrange the image files
Set the delay for each frame
Set number of loops
GUI interface to whirlgif options
Console which logs actions and errors
Free
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Quick Start
To see what GIFfun can do, choose GIFs->Sample. This loads some
images, creates an animated GIF file, and displays that file in your
browser.
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You can modify the various options in GIFfun and click the Make
GIF button to see the results.
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Tasks
To start a new animation:
Select "New" from the GIFs menu or
Drop on a folder of Images
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To save the Animated GIF:
Select GIFs->Save Animated GIF... or
Drag out the GIF from the Image Well to the Finder where
you want to save the file.
To add an image:
Drag that image onto the GIFfun window or
Choose GIFs->Add Image...
To delete an image:
1. Select the image in the TableView
2. Edit->Delete or Edit->Cut
To reorder your images:
1. Select the image to move
2. Click and drag the pointer cursor to the new location
3. Release the mouse button
To save your settings and GIFs:
Select GIFs->Save GIFS and Settings
To make the background transparent:
Click "Options"
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Tasks 2
GIFfun
To make the background transparent:
Click "Options"
Click "Use" switch in "Transparent Color" box
Choose the color you want to be transparent in the color
well
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Preferences
To bring up the Preferences window, choose GIFfun->Preferences.
Use the Preference window to set various default options.
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Console
To see exactly what GIFfun is doing, bring up the Console window by
choosing Tools->Show Console Log.
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Whirlgif Man Page 1
WHIRLGIF(1)
(February 1999)
WHIRLGIF(1)
NAME
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whirlgif - reads a series of GIF87a or GIF89a files, and
produces one single GIF89a file composed of those images.
SYNOPSIS
whirlgif [global-options] [file-options {GIFfile|-i
incfile
The global-options are one or more of:
-v
-trans index
-background {color|index}
-time delay
-globmap
-minimize
-o outfile
-loop [count]
-comment comment
-disp method
The file-options are one or more of:
-off x:y-pair
-trans {color|index}
-time delay
-disp method
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DESCRIPTION
When Whirlgif processes a series of GIF files, the first
file defines the so called screen size and the background color
of the resulting GIF. The background color may be changed by
an option.
The input files may be in either GIF87a or GIF89a format.
If a GIF file contains more than one image, only the first
image is read. To help saving bandwidth on the internet, there
are options for forcing all GIFs in the series to use the same
color map and to create sub-GIFs which only give the difference
between one image and the next.
OPTIONS
-v
Verbose mode. Output is written to the error out file.
This is a global option and must be given before any GIFfiles.
-trans index|color
Set the color identified with index or the color code
#xxxxxx, where xxxxxx is a hex RGB index to be transparent.
When this option is used as a file-option, its setting is valid
for all subsequent GIFfiles, until it is used again.
-background index
Set the color identified with its index to be the
background color, possibly overriding the background color
defined in the first GIFfile. This is a global option and must
be given before any GIFfiles.
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-time delay
Defines inter-frame timing in units of 1/100 second. Whenever
a value of delay is set by means of the -time option, this
value will be valid for the following GIFfiles until a new
value is set.
-globmap
Use the color map of the first GIFfile as the global color map
throughout the outfile. If the color maps of subsequent
GIFfiles contain colors that are not in the global color map,
the nearest colors in a 3 dimensional RGB space will be chosen.
This is a global option and must be given before any GIFfiles.
-minimize
Only the smallest rectangles covering the difference between
two GIFfiles will be output. All GIFfiles must be of the same
size and have the same offset. This is tested, and may result
in an error message. This is a global option and must be given
before any GIFfiles.
As a side effect, the -minimize option forces the same
(global)color map to be used throughout the outfile.
-o outfile
Write the results to outfile This is a global option and must
be given before any GIFfiles.
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-loop [count]
Add the Netscape ‘loop’ extension. If count is omitted, 0
(zero) is assumed. This is a global option and must be given
before any GIFfiles.
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-comment comment
Define a Comment Extension block within the resulting GIF file.
This block will be written at the end of the file. A comment
block can be at most 254 characters long, including line
shifts. It may be used for copyright notices. This is a global
option and must be given before any GIFfiles.
-disp method
Sets the image ‘disposal’ method. When this option is used as
a file-option, its setting is valid for all subsequent
GIFfiles, until it is used again. The methods may be one of
the keywords:
none No disposal specified.
back Restore to background color.
the background color.
Fill the image’s space with
prev Restore to previous, restores the screen area to what was
there before. Netscape has a problem with this option.
not Do not dispose.
this one.
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The default, the next image will overlay
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-i incfile
Read a list of names from incfile
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-off x:y-pair
Sets the position of the next GIFfile or the set of GIFfiles in
an incfile.
The x:y-pair consists of two integers, separated by one
character which cannot be part of a number. A colon, ‘:’ is
preferred. The two integers define the position of the upper
left corner of the next image within the ‘screen’ of the
resulting GIF. The integers are added to a possible offset
within the next GIFfile. One or both may be negative. Negative
numbers will re-position an image upwards and/or to the left
within its own ‘screen’. The ‘screen’ of a GIF is the term
used in the GIF definitions for the area, a GIF covers.
TIPS
If you don’t specify an output file, the GIF will be sent to
stdout. This is a good thing if you’re using whirlgif in a CGI
script, but could cause problems if you run from a terminal and
forget to redirect stdout.
The output file (if any) and the loop option MUST be specified
before any GIF images.
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You can specify several delay statements on the command line to
change the delay between images in the middle of an animation,
e.g.
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whirlgif -time 25 a.gif b.gif c.gif -time 100 d.gif -time 25
e.gif f.gif
Usually, the bacground color is defined by the first GIFfile,
and often it is index number zero (0). If you are animating
with a transparent color, a good method is usually to use the
same color as the background.
It is possible, but may cause problems for some programs, to
specify several transparency statements on the command line.
The size of the resulting GIF and the global color map is
defined by the first GIFfile. If you have a large background
GIF and have several smaller GIFs, you may make some kind of a
bulletin board by a command of the following form:
whirlgif large.gif -off 77:44 small1.gif -off 22:99 small2.giff
...
You may build in some timing between the small GIFs.
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LIMITATIONS
The loop ‘count’ is ineffective because Netspcape always loops
infinitely.
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BUGS
Whirlgif should be able to specify delay and offset in an
‘incfile’ list (see next bug).
Does not handle filenames starting with a - (hypen), except in
‘incfile’.
TODO
- Make a graphic interface.
algorithms in Java(tm).
Perhaps by re-implementing the
- option for other choices of unification methods for
colormaps. The nearest point in the 3 dimensional RGB color
space may not be the best choice.
- define extension block in order to have frame lists.
- define single-letter options and use getopt(3) like most UNIX
programs.
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AVAILABILITY
This program is available via the archive for comp.soruces.unix
http://sources.isc.org/ (and also via
http://www.danbbs.dk/~dino/whirlgif/ ).
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AUTHORs
V3.00 - 3.04 Hans Dinsen-Hansen <dino@danbbs.dk>
Based on Whirlgif V2.02 by Kevin Kadow <kadokev@msg.net> & Hans
Dinsen-Hansen <dino@danbbs.dk>
which is again based on ‘txtmerge’ written by: Mark Podlipec
<podlipec@BayNetworks.com>
Man Page by Mintak Ng <mintak@hitak.com> & Hans Dinsen-Hansen
<dino@danbbs.dk>
COPYRIGHT NOTICES The Graphics Interchange Format (c) is the
Copyright property of Compuserve Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a
Service Mark property of Compuserve Incorporated.
See other Copyright notices in the accompanying texts.
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Contact Information
To reach us:
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Tele:! ! ! ! (505) 345 4800
Fax:! ! ! ! (505) 345 3424
Email:! ! ! ! info@stone.com
Web:! ! ! ! www.stone.com
Mail:
! ! ! ! Stone Design Corp
! ! ! ! 2400 Rio Grande Blvd NW, pmb 116
! ! ! ! Albuquerque, NM, 87104, USA
!!!!!!!!
Send your bugs and suggestions to: info@stone.com
For whirlgif bugs and suggestions:
V3.00 - 3.04 Hans Dinsen-Hansen <dino@danbbs.dk>
Based on Whirlgif V2.02 by Kevin Kadow <kadokev@msg.net>
& Hans Dinsen-Hansen <dino@danbbs.dk>
which is again based on ‘txtmerge’ written by:
Mark Podlipec <podlipec@BayNetworks.com>
Man Page by Mintak Ng <mintak@hitak.com>
& Hans Dinsen-Hansen <dino@danbbs.dk>
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